Taking it Slow
by cruiseaholic
Summary: But that's okay, because you're only teenagers. You have all the time in the world." oneshot


You thought you had all the time in the world.

From the moment his hand closed around yours and he asked you to dance it didn't matter that Chris Abeley was just a few feet away, making out with his perfect blonde girlfriend Fawn, or that your father was already on his third drink of the night, or that with your heels on you were a good two inches taller than this boy who had just introduced himself as Cam Fisher. Chris Abeley was a douche for leading you on when he had a girlfriend, your father would be too hung over in the morning to care how much of his money you spent shopping with the Pretty Committee, and your heels had been getting stuck in the grass all night, anyway. You pull your hand away from Cam's and hold up your index finger, asking him to wait a second before leading you out onto the dance floor. You kick off your heels and pull the elastic out of your hair, letting your hair fall out of its perfectly coiffed bun into loose curls around your face. Cam stands motionless in front of you, confused and a little awestruck, and you laugh. You grab his hand and lead him out onto the dance floor, where you drape your arms around his neck and he puts his hands on your waist and you sway together in perfect rhythm with music the band's playing.

You can already feel yourself falling for him, but you promise yourself you'd take things slowly this time, that you wouldn't try to rush into a relationship like you had with Chris Abeley. You would get to know him first, make sure he actually returned your feelings before announcing your new crush to all of your friends. You could perfectly envision the path your relationship with Cam would take as if it were laid out in front of you, and it stretched on for miles. You had all the time in the world.

But nothing goes according to plan, and one day the path you had imagined stops suddenly in its tracks. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Keds-wearing roadblock by the name of Claire Lyons had landed smack dab in your way. But you're too committed to the perfect relationship you imagined for yourself while dancing at the OCD Benefit, and you've fallen too hard for the one blue- and one green-eyed boy to give up on him now, and you turn resignedly to the detour.

The detour's a lot longer that you thought it would be, and its twists and turns take you through more girl fights than you could've imagined possible, relationships with a soccer goalie, a drama geek, and a high school boy, your first kiss, several more kisses, a photo shoot for _Teen Vogue_, a trip to Hollywood, some of the happiest moments of your life, and some of the loneliest, until finally, the detour ends, and you're back on the path, and Claire and Cam have just broken up for the seventeenth time, and Cam's standing right in front of you, and you're wondering how this boy who you were once taller than in heels is now towering over you, peering down at you with his mis-matched eyes, his dark hair skimming the tops of his almost-too-long-for-a-boy eyelashes, his face edging closer and closer to yours until you can feel his breath on your lips, until he's all you can see, until your mind finally stops thinking and overanalyzing and all that matters is the soft pressure of his mouth on yours.

Somewhere between pleasure and ecstasy the bell rings, dismissing you to class. His eyes are burning with desire, and he's holding tightly onto your waist, and you've waited so long to be with him that there's a part of you that doesn't want to wait any longer. He whispers in your ear about an empty classroom on the old English hall that none of the teachers use anymore, and you want nothing more than to go with him. But instead you disentangle your hands from his hair, gently remove his hands from your waist, and pull away. You tell him you want to take it slow, that you don't want to rush into a relationship. The path is still there, but this time you're a little bit older and a little less naive. This time you see that there's going to be a few bumps along the way, and that you're going to have to take a few detours. But that's okay, because you're only teenagers. You have all the time in the world.


End file.
